Spirit India

Homeopathy is based on basic principles that practitioners may refer to as laws:

Like cures like. Your homeopathic practitioner selects your treatment by matching your symptoms to a plant- or animal-based medicine that causes the same symptoms in a healthy person. If you have itchy, watery eyes and a runny nose, your homeopathic practitioner might recommend onion extracts because onions cause those same symptoms in a healthy person. Even though you and a friend may both have colds, you might be given different treatments by a homeopathic practitioner.

One dose creates change. Homeopathic practitioners generally don’t recommend that you take your treatments every day or even every month. In homeopathy, you might take one dose of a treatment and wait to see what happens. Practitioners believe giving another dose too soon will interfere with the first dose.

Less is more. The smallest possible dose is the best treatment, according to homeopathy. Homeopathic remedies aren’t intended to cure your symptoms, but to encourage your body to heal itself.

Diluting medicine gives it more power. Homeopathic solutions are diluted with inactive substances such as alcohol or water — sometimes so much that no chemical evidence of the original remedy exists. According to homeopaths, diluting medications and shaking the solutions makes the remedies less toxic and gives them more healing power. This aspect of homeopathy draws the most criticism because it has no scientific explanation.

Several different forms of homeopathy exist, though most are guided by these same basic principles. The most common form is called classical homeopathy because it’s based on the original philosophy. Other forms, such as clinical homeopathy, use multiple medications at the same time rather than just one medication at a time. Other forms incorporate other parts of complementary and alternative medicine, like acupuncture.